Nostalgic

I have never purchase from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds before so I had decided to request a catalog. When it came, I was so excited. As I flipped through the catalog, I saw quite a few things that I have eaten(quite regularly) when I was growing up in Malaysia. These really brought back some memories. If you have a copy of that catalog, you've probably seen them:

Asian Winged Beans (Mom used to slice them thin and stir-fry them with dried shrimp and sambal)

Red Malabar Spinach (I remember growing these next to the fence at my parent's house and we would just go outside and pick some when mom needed them)

Roselle (I remembered making tea with dried roselle)
Jicama (It's a type of tuber, you can eat it fresh or cooked. It's the main ingredient in one of my favorite dish: Popiah)Bitter Gourds (They are called bitter gourds for a reason, they are bitter! Mom likes to stir-fry them with eggs)Also in the catalog are green long beans, Malaysian dark red eggplant, Boy Choy and Chinese Kale. These are common vegetable found in Malaysia.

If you have a Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog, you would have seen these: Vietnamese Fuzzy Gourd, aslo known as Winter Melon. Mom used to stir-fry these or make winter melon soup.

There you have it, a trip down my childhood memory lane.

Helpless

Believe it or not I have never been to an animal shelter before until this past weekend. Just like I had mentioned in my previous post, we brought 2 50Lbs bags of dog food and 1 50Lbs bag of cat food to the humane society on Saturday. Since I have never been to an animal shelter before, I have decided to go inside(in spite of warning from my co-worker) and take a look at the dogs and cats. As soon as we walked in, we saw this yellow lab who was so happy to see us and so were the other dogs. It really broke my heart to see these helpless animal in there. My eyes started to get watery as we walked to each cage and greet each dog then we went to see the cats. I tried my very best to hold my tears because there were other people there. I cried all the way home, feeling very helpless...

I have thought about volunteering for rescue groups before but I am too weak. I know I probably would not be able to handle it especially if it's an abused case. Or I may end up in prison because I would probably do something bad to the abusers.

Maybe one day....

I hate scumbags!

As you know I am a dog lover and I love all other animals too. What I heard on the news(local news) last night made me very angry. One or more of those lowlife scumbags broke into a local humane society and stole about $500 worth of cans and bottles that the society had collected and saved. They planned to use the money for pet food, vaccines or medications for the animals but now it's all gone! It's bad enough that those helpless animals have no home because their previous irresponsible owners don't want them anymore, and now this happened to them.
You can read all about this here: http://www.cbs6albany.com/news/shear_1260438___article.html/society_buys.html

Hubby and I are planning to buy a few bags of dog food and drop them off on Saturday. That's the least we can do.

New Garden Area

This year I will be adding a new garden section for corn, potatoes and horseradish. The best place for this new section is shown in the pictures below(in pink). I haven't quite decide how big it should be yet. I know it has to be big enough for 4 rows of corn and another 3'x5' area for potatoes. I can't make it too big as the dogs would probably protest that they are losing their space.

This is June protesting that I'm taking up their space for a new garden. :-)

I like to research and learn more about different vegetable varieties out there and of course pick the ones that are best for my gardening zone (I'm in Zone 5). I found this site, by Cornell University, in which you can search and read reviews of over 5000 vegetable varieties! If you sign up(and it's free), you could create your profile and then search the varieties according to your zone. If you are not sure which zone you are at, there is a map that you can refer to. You could also write reviews on the varieties that you have planted. Please click on the picture on the right to go to the site. I will also put a little search widget here on my blog. Thank you Craig for providing me with the code.

Rugelach

Doing the "Brought to you by the letter..." meme last week had inspired me to make some rugelach over the weekend. These little Jewish pastries are so flacky and delicious, you can't eat just one! I am serious! The first dozen was gone in less than 15 minutes after it came out of the oven! We managed to control ourselves and saved the second dozen for the next day.

This is a very simple and easy to make recipe (the recipe looks long but it's not complicated at all). The unbaked dough freezes very well. Just make them and freeze individually. When you crave for some, just pop them in the oven and add about 5-10 minutes to the baking time and you got yourself a treat!

There are many varieties for the fillings, pretty much it's whatever you prefer. I personally love the cinnamon sugar filling and raspberry jam filling. I have seen chocolate & walnut filling but have not tried it yet. Some people prefer apricot jam with raisins.

Rugelach
This recipe makes 4 dozens. Feel free to make only the portion you want and freeze the rest of the dough. Or make all of it but bake only what you want and freeze the rest of the unbaked rugelach individually.

Ingredients:
Dough
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I was out of vanilla extract so I used 1/4 tsp orange extract, it gave the dough a nice hint of citrus)
2 cups AP flour
a pinch of salt (optional)



Filling - Cinnamon Sugar
4 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon



Filling - Raspberry Jam
Raspberry Jam, stirred to loosen it a bit (I didn't measure how much jam, I just scooped it out of the jar and spread on the dough, so I guess you will have to kinda "eye-ball" it)
A handful of chopped nuts (optional)



Topping **Note: You could do this step or you could do what I did: just roll the rugelach in the cinnamon sugar mixture before placing them on the baking sheet
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon



Instructions:
1) In a mixing bowl, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy(you could use an electric mixer or food processor).
2) Beat in sugar and vanilla extract. Scraping sides of bowl occationally. On low speed, beat in flour and salt until incorporated.
3) Scrape the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap/parchment paper and press it together to form a ball. Divide the dough into 4 portions and wrap each portion with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
4) For filling, combine the sugar and cinnamon and set aside. Line baking sheet(s) with parchment paper.
5) Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to sit on the counter for about 15 minutes or until it's malleable to roll.
6) For easy rolling of dough, place one sheet of plastic warp(10" - 12" wide) on the counter, lightly floured the wrap and then place 1 portion of the dough on the plastic warp. Place another sheet of plastic wrap on top of the dough and roll out the dough into a 9" circle (about 1/8" thick). Remove the top sheet, flip dough over and remove the bottom sheet of plastic wrap. Now you are ready for the filling.
7) Brush melted butter on the dough and sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar. For Raspberry filling, spread jam generously on dough, sprinkle with chopped nuts if you prefer. I sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on the jam, taste pretty good. Use a knife, cut the dough circle into 12 triangles or "pie pieces".
8) Start at the wide end, roll up the triangle. You could bend the ends to form a crescent shape. Place the rugelach, point underneath, about 2" apart on the prepared baking sheet. Refrigerate, covered with plactic wrap, for at least 20 minutes. The dough is chilled to maintain the most even shape.
9) While you wait, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. If you are making more than a dozen, repeat steps 6-8.
10) For the topping, brush the rugelach with milk. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle on the rugelach.
11) Bake for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned. For even baking, rotate the baking sheets halfway through the baking time.
12) Remove from oven. Using a spatula, transfer rugelach to wire racks and cool completely(that is if you can wait that long). Enjoy!

Consider yourself warned: You can't eat just one!!!

Order Up

I placed my seeds orders yesterday. I've been planning what to plant this year. I wrote a list of what I want and went through the seeds that I still have from last year and finally decided on what I need to order. There are a few things I'm not trying again and there are a few new things for the garden, but more on that at a later post.

If you recall, last year was my first year starting my own seedlings and I really enjoyed it. Some of my seeds for last year came from my neighbor and some from Lowes & Tractor Supply store. This year however, I have decided to order them. Here are what I've ordered:

From Johnny 's Seeds: Cherokee Purple tomatoes and Purple Haze carrots...Yes, I have a thing for purple stuff, can't help it, purple is my favorite color!

From Pinetree Garden Seeds: Honey & Cream Corn, Cue Ball Zucchini, National Pickling Cucumber, Tomatoes (Opalka, Yellow Pear, Betterboy, Beefmaster & Black Cherry)

Where do you normally buy your seeds from? Is it the same place every year or do you like to order from different places each time?

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Snow, snow and more snow...just some pictures of the girls playing in the snow and my snowy deck.